About Town 2-1-13

Published February 1, 2013 - 12:05am

Beauty pageant, Tahitian soiree
slated Feb. 15

A beauty pageant to crown Mr. and Miss Heiva I Hawaii 2013 and a Tahitian soiree featuring music by Tava D, Te Ea O Te Turama and guests are planned from 6 to 9 p.m. Feb. 15 on the luau grounds at King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel.

Tickets are $20 per person and available by calling 987-2354. Dinner plates are also on sale for $10.

The event is a fundraiser to support Te Ea O Te Turama and the perpetuation of Polynesian cultural dance and education.

Prospective pageant competitors should contact teeaoteturama@gmail.com for more information. Applications and guidelines are available at teeaoteturama.com.

Storyteller talks Hawaiian history

Historian and storyteller Boyd Bond recounts how the Hawaiian Islands came to be at 7 p.m. Monday at the Lyman Museum.

The Hawaiian Islands are the most isolated islands on Earth, farther from any continent than any other group, yet they were teeming with plants and animals when the first Polynesians arrived.

Without grazing animals, slower-growing plants had time to adapt to harsh environments and unique ecosystems evolved. While those first human settlers made an impact on the balance of nature in the lowlands, they also recast their ancestral stories to include the plants and animals they found, and eventually became the Hawaiian branch of the Polynesian family.

Admission is free for Lyman Museum members and $3 for nonmembers. For more information, call 935-5021 or visit lymanmuseum.org.

Ocean Count records 267 whales at peak

More than 800 volunteers gathered data from the shores of Oahu, Kauai and Hawaii Island during Saturday’s Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary Ocean Count. The count is a shore-based census; participants tally humpback whale sightings and document the animals’ surface behavior during the survey.

Volunteers collected data from 59 sites statewide, reporting 267 whales at the day’s peak, between 11:30 and 11:45 a.m. Preliminary data is available at sanctuaryoceancount.org/resources.

The group hosted volunteers from the Japanese Environmental Action Network, the Japan Ministry of the Environment, the University of Kagoshima and other Japanese nongovernmental organizations concerned about March 2011 tsunami debris and a representative from the Ocean Conservancy.

Hawaii Wildlife Fund is planning a Ka‘u cleanup March 16 and a cleanup at Manuka Natural Area Reserve May 25.